First Day Lunch Menu

Today was our first day out on the new menu of the new school lunch program! Busy!

**Yeah, this is probably not my best picture. I got some weird looking smile on my face which makes me look goofy! [[Shrug]]**

We had Mediterranean style chicken wraps with veggies and hummus today. Man! I feel kind of embarrassed that I didn't even remember to get a picture! Right now my sous chef Roberto and I are running the show in the kitchen. We feel like everything went pretty smooth today but we know for the office and administration it was pretty crazy trying to get all the orders in!

We have four lunches. The daycare runs infants to k4 and they eat at 11:00am. Then the school runs three lunches as follows: k5-2nd grade 11:25am to 11:55am, 3rd-6th grade 12:00pm to 12:30pm, 7th-12th grade 12:50pm to 1:20pm.

Its a bit unusual to me to have four lunches but I think its an excellent combination of fitting each group of kids thru the cafeteria in an expedient manner and managing the quality & volume of the food for each group. If your running behind this schedule gives you a chance to catch up before the next lunch comes thru and not bottle neck by trying to get the total amount of food out at one time! The kitchen is limited in space in both storage and physical work area.

I wanna give a shout out to my man Roberto! Excellent job today! I know its a steep learning curve...but I'll try my best to keep you from cutting off a finger or two!

Favorites This Week

Below are a few things I found this week I like. Each picture was borrowed from, and has a link to the original post so hopefully I am not breaking online etiquette. Merely trying to bring attention to some cool ideas and a few new things.[click pics for link back to articles]

Cheese & Herb Waffle BLT! Need I say more? Click the link and get the recipe.

The Pioneer Woman really spoke to my stomach on this one...Pepperoni Pizza Burgers!

Sweet Potato Pancakes from The Gingered Whisk!

Home made peanut butter(or any nut)! Love the recipe and instructional over at Michael Ruhlman's and of course all excellent photography done by his wife: Donna Ruhlman!

Kitchen is Open! Lunch Menu - Go!

Awhile back I posted that I started a new job. It was a 'startup' of sorts. I am working for a private academy that has a commercial kitchen but had not been in the position to start a school lunch program. Now they are.

We spent weeks on plans, lunch menus, instructions, manuals, lining up vendors, tweaking the way we do things, 'courting' the health department...I did not want to start posting on this venture till I knew we were in the clear and things were about to kick off. That's why I have not posted much this week. But now...

The kitchen was approved today by the Health Department for its permit to operate! There are still a few things to work on but they are mostly minor.

Starting Monday we will kick off our school lunch program for the Academy...its going to be BUSY, and CRAZY! If you want to check out the school and the lunch menu go HERE! (Right hand corner, read: Lunch Menu)

Woo-Hoo!

Favorites This Week

Below are a few things I found this week I like. Each picture was borrowed from, and has a link to the original post so hopefully I am not breaking online etiquette. Merely trying to bring attention to some cool ideas and a few new things. [click pics for link back to articles]

Over at The Girl Who Ate Everything Walking Tacos has resurfaced!

A great Idea that is really an oldie...Recipe & great pictures included! - Its like Frito-Pie in a bag!

Pod Rooms - Small $100 hotel rooms in NYC! Great idea, fun concept, brilliant design!

Black Kuro Burger (by Burger King!) - Bamboo charcoal ash mixed in with bun and black squid ink ketchup...Mmmm, mouth watering, eh?

 This brought back fond memories of a little restaurant in the North End of Boston called Limoncello! At the end of every meal it was customary to finish with a small drink of Limoncello. I like the idea of making my own just because of these wonderful memories but alas a small bottle would probably last for 10 years around our house!

Bon Appetit & Gourmet (not worth the news stand price)

[I originally posted this in 2007 - not much has changed since then, actually maybe worse...]

I can truly say that I have been reading/looking at Bon Appetit and Gourmet for years now and I am about to get rid of their subscription just like I did Food & Wine.

First let me say that if you have a subscription that basically makes each magazine only a dollar apiece, then maybe that's OK.  The photography and/or maybe one article in the whole magazine would be worth a dollar to you...but please please don't pay that shelf price of 3.99 or higher.

I have been counting pages and looking at pictures and realized some very troubling things about these magazines that maybe you are not aware of...

1. If you count the pages of ads, ad pictures, and non-content it will pretty much be 50% to 60% of the magazine.
2. Now take all the pages that have actual content and figure out the real percentage of the page that is not real content...uh huh, now maybe 60% to 65% of the magazine is not true content, meaning its ads.
3. Take away all the credits and small print that doesn't teach you anything (you know all that necessary stuff for publishing) yep, now we're up to 70%.
4. And don't be fooled by some of that great photography or mini-articles because if you read some of the small print or pay attention to the sponsor you realize its more ad pictures and content.
5. Last but not least, take away the real pictures (because they use so many real BIG pictures that are beautiful but take up so much space) and see that you may have 20% actual text content left that is either article or recipe.

Don't get me wrong, that may be worth the dollar or two a magazine per month subscription price but I for one am tired of leafing thru all that ad paraphernalia just to get to what little meat there is...

Look thru your subscriptions and tell me if I am lying.  I think not. My suggestion? Saveur.